In the spring of 2016, following a break, the nursery in the town of Böblingen decided to sanitise selected open spaces prior to sowing ornamental flowers in an environmentally friendly manner, by means of steaming weeds and weed seeds following recent years using other procedures in which no comparable, satisfactory results have been achieved.
The public provider therefore utilised the experience of the company mobildampf from Waiblingen (www.mobildampf.de). The company has provided steaming equipment and supervised as well as monitored the individual steaming processes.
Highlight beds on public streets were recently identified in the first days of April, which shall be designed as decorative flower arrangements, so-called „highlight beds“, following weed control using superheated steam. The company, mobildampf, has covered and steamed surfaces of up to 120m² in size within 2.5 days using the popular sheet steaming procedure. At the same time, a steam boiler from the company MSD was used with an output of up to 1,000kg steam/h.
The city of Böblingen made a conscious decision to use steam. Extra comparative tests were previously made in 2015 and thereby also left surfaces unsteamed. The results speaks for themselves (photos below). The steamed surfaces are completely weed free and the shoots of ornamental plants sown are clearly visible in rows. On the unsteamed surface (under the surface), the seeds grow uninhibitedly.
Unsteamed flower bed at Calwer street in Böblingen – weeds are everywhere
